Jelani Greenidge
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thread 1/28
I'm thinking about this weekend's Super Bowl and whether or not I have a rooting interest, and my inner monologue is beginning to resemble Wallace Shawn's iconic breakdown as Vizzini to Mandy Patinkin's Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride."
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 2/28
Well the Niners have been to a bazillion Super Bowls, and I like to cheer for the underdog, so I clearly cannot choose the team in front of me.
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 3/28
But the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, a two-time winning QB who's already won two Super Bowls at 28, so he's no underdog either, which means I can clearly not choose the team in front of you.
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 4/28
But the Niners are bitter rivals to my favorite Seattle Seahawks. I still have Richard Sherman's postgame rant about Michael Crabtree burned into my memory. (Hard to believe it's been a whole decade since that happened)
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 5/28
And I still have a lot of residual Bay-Area vitriol from the GS Warriors knocking my Portland Trail Blazers out of the playoffs on an annual basis. So I clearly cannot choose the team in front of me.
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 6/28
But the Chiefs biggest rivals right now are the Baltimore Ravens with league MVP Lamar Jackson, and I'm still mad at the Chiefs for knocking them out since I have a lot of friends in Maryland pulling for the Ravens who CANNOT BELIEVE Zay Flowers dropped TD pass.
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 7/28
So I clearly cannot choose the team in front of you!
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 8/28
Speaking of crushing defeats, the Niners put the clamps on the feel good story of the year when they defeated the formerly-hapless-but-suddenly-formidable-yet-still-somehow-hapless Detroit Lions, which was absolutely heartbreaking to watch in real time.
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 9/28
So I clearly cannot choose the team in front of me.
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 10/28
"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect," you might be thinking.

WAIT TIL I GET GOING!
04:00 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 11/28
The Chiefs' biggest story off the field has been the very public relationship between tight end Travis Kelce and pop music superduperstar Taylor Swift, which irritates me a little because I'm not a huge fan of her music and...
04:03 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 12/28
I don't like the ways in which her brand subtly upholds traditional standards of white femininity as normative, so I clearly cannot choose the team in front of you.
04:03 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 13/28
But if the Chiefs lose, that would delight all the right-wing conspiracy nuts who think the Super Bowl is fixed so that Taylor Swift can swing the election to Biden, which means...
04:03 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 14/28
A ton of conservative pundits that have used Nancy Pelosi and the city of San Francisco as a rhetorical punching bag for a decade or more are now in the suddenly awkward position of cheering for the Niners just to stick it to Swift, and by proxy, Biden.
04:04 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 15/28
"He's just stalling now," you're probably thinking.
YOU'D LIKE TO THINK THAT, WOULDN'T YOU?!?!
04:04 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 16/28
Speaking of the Niners, probably their most recognizable pop culture representative is former QB Colin Kaepernick, who famously took a knee during the national anthem to highlight America's ongoing problem with police brutality against black people and was summarily blackballed from the NFL.
04:05 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 17/28
I admire anyone who takes an important stand even at great personal cost, and I like to think he'd be cheering for his former team.
04:06 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 18/28
Also speaking of social justice causes, there are still quite a few indigenous, native and/or first nations groups calling for the Chiefs to discontinue use of their name because of its connection to offensive portrayals of native culture...
04:07 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 19/28
So ALL OF THAT means I *clearly* cannot choose the team in front of you...
04:08 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 20/28
But people forget that the "San Francisco" 49ers don't actually play in San Francisco, but 45 miles south in Santa Clara, California.
04:08 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 21/28
That location is nestled in the south bay area, a stone's throw away from Mountain View (home of Google/Alphabet), Cupertino (Apple), and Menlo Park (Facebook), three of the biggest tech companies in the world.
04:09 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 22/28
Not only are all three tech companies notorious for the power they wield to shape public perception and the various ways they invade our privacy and threaten the livelihoods of artists, musicians, journalists and other people who make their money with creativity or human ingenuity...
04:09 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 23/28
But the huge concentration of wealth in the area props up income inequality and supports NIMBYs who want affordable housing in the abstract but always vote it down when it's proposed in their neighborhoods or cities!
04:10 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 24/28
So I CLEARLY cannot choose the team in front of me!
04:10 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 25/28
So in the end, I decided that the safest thing for me to do is to cheer for whichever team has the ball to score because completed passes and long runs are more exciting than broken up plays and QB sacks.
04:10 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 26/28
But mostly, I'll save my true passion for the commercials, which I will enjoy, laugh at, and analyze like normal.
04:11 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 27/28
All of them, except of course, any commercials featuring the particular pharmaceutical agent benzoylecgonine, also known by its informal name, iocaine.
04:11 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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Jelani Greenidge
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thread 28/28
If I see any commercials featuring that product, I'll just shrug and wait for the next one.

Because you see...
I've developed an immunity to iocaine powder.
04:11 PM - Feb 08, 2024
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